Hello 2010!

Hi, (________) end of 2009--Hi friends! I am wishing everyone I know a happy fun time on NYE! Me? I will be working. Neil will be working. But, this is okay. Pops bought us a nice bottle of wine which we will toast afterwards with.

~

Find someone to say it best, thus:
Frank O'Hara, 'Memoir of Sergei O...'


My feet have never been comfortable
since I pulled them out of the Black Sea
and came to your foul country
what fatal day did I dry them off for
travel loathesome travel to a world
even older than the one I grew up in
what fatal day meanwhile back in France
they were stumbling towards the Bastille
and the Princesse de Lamballe was
shuddering as shudderingly as I
with a lot less to lose I still hated
to move sedentary as a roach with Tiflis
never again to go swimming in the nude
publicly little did I know how
awfulness could reach perfection abroad
I even thought I would see a Red Indian
all I saw was lipstick everything
covered with grass or shrouds pretty
shrouds shot with silver and plasma
even the chairs are upholstered to a
smothering perfection of inanity
and there are no chandeliers and there
are no gates to the parks so you don't
know whether you're going in them or
coming out of them that's not relaxing
and so you can't really walk all you can
do is sit and drink coffee and brood
over the lost leaves and refreshing scum
of Georgia Georgia of my heritage
and dismay meanwhile back in my old
country they are renaming everything so
I can't even tell any more which ballet
company I am remembering with so much
pain and the same thing has started
here American Avenue Park Avenue South
Avenue of Chester Conklin Binnie Barnes
Boulevard Avenue of Toby Wing Barbara
Nichols Street where am I what is it
I can't even find a pond small enough
to drown in without being ostentatious
you are ruining your awful country and me
it is not new to do this it is terribly
democratic and ordinary and tired

1961

tree lighted

Christmas 2009, in pics--part I

A NEW ARRIVAL UNTO THE WORLD

LAST DAY OF CLASS

Yep, I'm grading the last handfull of papers, & I'm done. Great news! It's been a long rough semester, I'm ready for a big ole Christmas break (& then some...)

Today, Grita went to the vet. She has colonitis which is really not a huge deal. Take a lil medicine & she'll be just fine. I'm glad that I have such good girls--both seem to enjoy going to the vet. They're champs!

Friday is our first annual Christmas party. I'll post pics...

In the meantime, here's our tree in the daylight. Gorgeous. I'll have to post a nitetime one too, since I hunted for damn ever for the tree topper which you can't even see in the pic below.

Hope everyone is well--I am hanging in there! Lyla is growing up beautifully. Can you believe those blue eyes?

atta boy: the wrangler national finals rodeo time of year

so, it's been on the last couple days--i think tomorrow starts round 6. i watch when i can, as it makes me a lil sad. anyways. i said i would win the barrel racing by the time i was 40. i usually do just about everything i say will, so i imagine i probably will. (said i would make a book by the time i was 30. check.) wnfr, i'll see you sooner than later.

til then, my favs are above. lindsay sears & sherry cervi (palomino). sherry lives in marana, az, which means she is my ultimate, ultimate fav. since i'm a tucson girl these days. i'm sorry to not know these horses. seems like everytime i see these cowgirls they're on a different horse. magic!

vikings sunday

LA holiday, & back

I went to LA for Thanksgiving & had so much fun. Lyla Grace is 9 lbs & doing great. So is Mandy, so is Budz, so is Willow Beast, so are Mama & Daddy. We had a southern feast on Thursday. Great big ole turkey, & of course, my favs, dumplings & dressing, which I ate til yesterday, when I couldn't anymore: I had to be getting on home to my love & our crazy animals.

Home! Home is nice. It looks like the above pic. See? Nice!

no lack in humor's always a good thing child the fall's set in here & if you're not thankful fer something might as well be thanksful for it all--days

i like laughs

i like dreams both good & bad

i was taught believe in dreams (good)

i was raised on the 'you feel low?'... power outfit!

i was raised on the back of a horse ([good] dreams then fer/real)

i was raised chin up! shoulder's back!

i was raised 'chase dreams' / go west! / come home! / go team! / be good!

you all are the choosen ones

New Moon

yesterday was nice. went like this

up
plan class
drive like hell to get to class
teach simple compound & complex sentences
home!--neil & i go to sup at BLine
after dinner drinks at Ches
rush to theater--new moon!
was good
kristen stewart was lovely & of course jacob & edward
i heart stephanie meyer
the young grl sitting next to me w/ ed cullen dogtags crying when ed leaves bella in the woods. more lil grl crying. neil being a trooper. popcorn! my belly hurting a bunch.
home
project runway finale
irina was not a very nice grl but
she wins of course
to bed! 5am

Belen

[photo: Dixie Canyon, LA, Sheryl Taylor, morning walks]

I figure out how to make myself a shelterbelt. In the country you get yourself old school tobacco sticks to construct your castle. Two beds on the bottom, build that thing up around you: chairs, a table on the top, but where is out. You break your house getting out of it. There is no other way unless you make a jump, but most of the time the construct’s knocked down. I’d rather disassemble myself thank you than have you carry my body to the ground with your hands. The city gives you a tenement & a cold, work in a BBQ restaurant where rich go to slum. There are so many cats on the street to feed; they follow in a line to the bodega for food, crying in a line, all bones, in the dark behind you. Locals think crazy, but cats die. I hole this bastard in, put confederate jasmine in the window sill for a light switch, go paint the room sunshine yellow. Of a night I fill a cooking pot with water to lay atop the radiator, the cats curl round my body sides for heat. Everything in the body is tied to the body, the windows, photo collage, wrapped around boxes of art, the floor needs sweeping & everything washed. The part that cracks or cracked under what you think might be legs running through a pile of Georgia woods, your mama calling but there is no home; Belen gets out there alone, will she let someone make her dinner, the Franklin Ave shuttle rattles pennies on the dresser, & drive your mother engine cause there is country for which a car means I will go do it.

twinkle reads ladybugs, yellow birds, butterflies

today is sunday, & i still have a cold. must be 100% by the time thanksgiving rolls around so that i can hold lyla g without worrrying about getting her sick. i like sundays. i just cooked dinner--ricotta stuffed borsetti, my own pasta sauce (tom, sundried tom, big kalamatas, onion, garlic, caper, red wine, red wine vinegar, lemon, lime, s & p), lil salads, & french bread in the oven.

i've been reading my fashion blogs today. i love the sartorialist so much. makes me want to tote around my camera everywhere. makes me miss polaroids. please, target, please start carrying regular polaroid film again!

yesterday was the first saturday i did not work, & it was a lil odd. i went to a hootenanny given by other southern poets here in tucson, & it was sorta fun. a lovely alabamian made a banana pudding that made me miss home. i did slip out by 130 to make it up to congress for last call to see my sugar, which was/is/& always will be so very nice.

vikings won today. big up! murderface peed the living room rug. ugh!

i'm going to take a big bubble bath. also, write & try to get some poems together for morgan. i am taking a fiction workshop with meg files in the spring. i figure it's about time i really & seriously try my hand at the genre. but, i will not write dialogue. period.

kristen nelson is doing the design & layout of my book! yay! i met with she & noah on thursday for wine & book-talk, was exciting: my book is going to be a smaller one in size, hurray! i like little books of poetry. they make me happy. i did find out the release date probably won't be until june, which seems so far away. at least i am better with my patience these days. i used to be so horrible!

Day of the Dead / All Souls Procession

(lil kids in skeleton carts in downtown tucson, all souls procession, 09)
Inspired by Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos holiday, Susan Kay Johnson felt she should honor her father's passing in celebration and creativity. The performance was very well received and many artists were inspired to continue growing the Procession into its modern incarnation.

Today we find ourselves organizing over 20,000 participants on the streets of downtown Tucson for a two-mile long human-powered procession that ends in the finalizing action of burning a large urn filled with the hopes, offerings and wishes of the public for those who have passed. Inside the event are myriads of installation art, altars, performers, and creatives of all kinds collaborating for almost half the year to prepare their offerings to this amazing event. The All Souls Procession, and now the entire All Souls Weekend, is a celebration and mourning of the lives of our loved ones who have passed.

~

That night, Calexico played a show at the Rialto, & filmed a video/documentary in honor of Tucson's original holiday/street procession. I wasn't there, I was working. But, if I were not working, ten bucks I woulda been there.

(Muralist Joe Pagac did this piece on the eastern wall of the Rialto Theater. Bellissimo!

Goings

last week i worked 6 days in a row. i was tired, but now i've recovered. i sorta tried to put in my two weeks at the bar (you knew it was coming...) but it simply didn't work. so, the solution is, is i'm only going to be there on wednesday. for awhile at least. i'm on burnout.

today is veteran's day, a big day on sawtelle avenue! thank you to all that have served.

------------------------------------------------------------------

also: i have been thinking a looooong time that i am bored slap silly with most of the poetry i'm reading in journals. boring. just plain bad. bad philos. heady nothings. what the f- is going on?

[if you offer a negative, offer a positive]

martha ronk has some good poems in the new issue of pool. the rest of that journal (in concept & across the board, historically...) is mostly blah.

and now to the new yorker.... what! the new yorker?

the new yorker's been publishing a bunch of john ashbery & james schuyler. hip!

-------------------------------------------------------------
Africa! Africa! by schuyler

A match clears the air, congestion
of the chapel organ tones family
circle faces. How we hate to love!
Nephew Noxious pops his teeth and
the nameless others fatly quiver.
Boredom's puffy toes kick us in
our Sunday-supper-swollen guts. I
flip my butterfly routine, sundry
as Monday wash. Hairpins detonate.
On the wall Christ refutes doctors,
germanically, divinity, come back,
fudge us again, us lost ladies
who heard a bullet, stop to answer
the craftiest command of inert man
rolled from the colossal ear. Year
of hell and harmony, spill you a
good sleep, near the zebra's hoof.

-----------------------------------------------------

i like poems like this because one can tell the poet is a-l-i-v-e, doing some living. not some deep introvert writing from a closet bunker shell, oh poorness, i cannot venture out today, the world's a wolf, i tuck myself in gently. LIVE, poets, LIVE> before the rest of us (us, including) die of freakin boredom.

---------------------------------------------------
thank you wednesday.

it's 80 degrees in Tucson & i'm sweating in the living room watching 'Kath & Kim.'

-------------------------------------------------

Kate Greenstreet is reading at Hotel Congress tonight

being that i work at hotel congress, i'll be working during the reading. anyways, kate'll be there reading, along with jane sprague, & if you go, hit me up, i'll be in the club working the edward sharp show. :) ten big smiley faces for working every time anything cool's going on in TUS.

Lyla G

i talked to mamacita yesterday, who says missus lyla g is now 6 pounds 5 ounces. way to go baby girl! i'd like to give a big ole shout out to Rouch to go get yourself a pedicure & relax, leave that baby with mama sheryl & take a couple hours for yourself. i miss yall. will come out pretty soon. XO--

allan sturm is a pretttttty good photographer, likes to torment me when working. thanks Al.

In other news, I still have a cough & am on that Nyquil. Today I will join the Y & grade midterm papers & grocery shop & pay rent & drink a lot of tea & try to get a hold of the crew in LA. Monday! I freakin love it! Sasstrid loves it! She's chilling on the window ledge with that content look on her face.

Halloween

has come & gone like the rest. It's 5:14 am & Im just recently home from work at the bar, on my second Tecate & pretty tired. This year I stuffed my bra with a couple socks & went as Zorro, sans the sword cause that wouldnt work behind the bar, you know. Bar work can be frustrating, such high volumes & the often awful people that dont know etiquette & then all the rest. I am writing cause my most favorite people get concerned when I dont write, but really all I have to say is Im tired & the sun's coming up. I miss a lot of people right now--Granny, crew in LA, Lyla G, Whitney, Laura, Steph, Peacock, Cammy Li & more Im sure Im forgetting--if you are reading this, I love yall. I hope to talk soon--XO--

newest TWINKLE in LA

lyla grace makes debut, 5 pounds, 15 ounces. lil angel. just got her home, now everyone can get some rest. it was so special getting to meet you lyla--we'll see you soon! love & congrats to mandy & christopher!

One Year One Day

Today makes one year for me & my sugar. Yay love!

Today makes one day for lil' Lyla Grace, born in LA, 5 pounds 15 ounces, to proud parents Mandy & Christoper Coulton. Lots of pics soon.

Big day!

9 years old lashels

i covet

velvet angels' whiskey a go go shoes. yikes they are so cute. am going to order mine as soon as bluefly gets my size. :)

photo collage in honor of cammy li, in honor of busy busy running round :) second year of college!

hang in there lil sis!
take care of that cold!
get to feeling better real soon
and please keep in touch!
tackle hug!
all the x & o's in the whole wide world!
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

relentless caper for all those who step / the legend of their youth into the noon

hay. it's really nice weather here in tucson. we finally turned the a/c off a week or so ago & i wore two light sweaters out & about before the desert punched through another eternal summer, at least til november, 90 degrees the last two days; the a/c's back on, one more month of a 200+ electricity bill.

ive been putting much of my time into planning my class, the other into love & home, new friends & bar work, & writing (a little: fiction). and reading. i finished all the twilight series books & have felt a pretty noticeable hole in my life w/o those characters, of a night mostly, cause i usually read an hour or so before bedtime, sometime around 5ish when most people waken.

i ordered my halloween costume a couple days ago. Bandero hat, gauntlets, eye mask, ruffled shirt, red waist sash, no sword 'cause i'll be working the bar & that would be dangerous. what am i gonna be? what ive wanted to be for years now! i'll post pics post-event :)

im getting very excited about heading to LA to meet my new little niece, Lyla G, who should make her debut in three weeks or so. all my best wishes to my rouch & budzy these next few weeks.

-------------------
[fall is for whitman, anyways]

[52]

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me....he complains of
my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed...I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadowed
wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air...I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop some where waiting for you.

[w whitman; so full, grotesque, imaginative, childlike]

-----------------

XO--

thank you, noah!